In London’s Broadband Wars, (Land)lines are Drawn

When was the last time you used a landline? For a lot of people living in the U.K., landline phone connections are purely a means to get Internet into their homes, so that they can talk to family or friends on a host of voice and video services.

For many, a home phone is now that forlorn device left unused in the corner of the living room. For British households, the line is installed by telecoms giant BT, who charges a line rental fee on top of the monthly broadband Internet bill.

Nicholas James, the chief executive of UK Broadband, a London wireless Internet service company looking to disrupt BT’s business, says Londoners waste £193 million ($324 million) a year on what he describes as a landline “tax,” including unwanted landline rental charges and unnecessary installation costs.

47% of residents in central London would prefer broadband without a landline, UK Broadband said at a press conference.

The company commissioned the data from economic forecasters the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). Over a third of the capital’s population say they rarely use their home landline for voice calls, the study found.

As reported earlier this week, UK Broadband is rolling out a mobile broadband service in London underpinned largely by its own cellular network infrastructure. The company said its service will mainly appeal to students, renters, flat-sharers and young professionals who want a contract-free service.

BT already knows it phone line market is declining in the face of broadband access competition from fiber and cable providers. That’s why it is rolling out fiber to the masses.

“The U.K. broadband market is extremely competitive already with some of the lowest prices in the world,” a BT spokesman said. The spokesman added that BT’s most recent line losses were the lowest for more than five years. “Demand for fixed line fiber broadband continues to grow quickly, with the number of landlines actually increasing in recent years. This is because people find fixed broadband to be faster and more reliable than mobile, as well as being great value for money,” the BT spokesman added.

The convergence of mobile and fixed-line broadband technology will only increase to meet substantial growth in data demand, analysts say. “Mobile broadband” solutions will not be going away.